Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1886 — Penn and the Quakers. [ARTICLE]

Penn and the Quakers.

Pass we now southwards to Delwhere another of fugitives from the Stuart Oppression ! a ere busily at work on the Delaware laud the Schuylkill, founding another city and State. It was a strange circle jof events that placed at the head of ithat enterprise an Englishman of aristocratic connection, a personal friend pf James 11., a man for whom a splendid career seemed to like open at home. 'First of all, it was a remarkable thing that Penn became a Quaker. It is never a strange thing that the Spirit of God should lay hold of a man, however far he may seem from the kingdom, and compel him to ask, “What must Idoto be saved?” Hence it was no uncommon thing iu those days for men of the world to turn Puritans. The Quakers in those days bad all the intensity of conviction of the Puritans, but they added the doctrine of the inner light, which has a great and overpowering fascination for men who are in dead earnest, and who desire a more definite rule of life from God than the Scriptures supply. To the infinite disgust of his father Penn became a Quaker of the most rigid type—nay, more, he became a Quaker minister, and he labored in season and out of season, at home and abroad, for-, the conversion of souls. Circumstances that we might call accidental brought him into connection with a colonial undertaking situated in New Jersey, in which, for his high reputation for wisdom and honesty, he was appointed an arbitrator. From arbitrator he became manager, and part of •the land being sold to the Quakers, he -came to have a special interest in it, ; and drew out for it its .constitution. 3y-and-by an arrangement was made /by which in lieu of a large sum of money due by the Government so England to his father, he became proprietor of a great tract of land, afterward called Pennsylvania, of the capabilities of which he had come to form a high opinion, and where he desired so make a home for the persecuted Quakers of England, and to try an experiment of the importance of which. there could be no doubt. That experiment was to establish a community that should be governed not by the maxims of the world, but by the principles of the word of God. In one respect, especiallv, he longed for'a change from the ordinary policy—namely,m the mode of treating natives. The ordinary way was to drive them by force out of the way, or rob them of their possessions, make treaties that are nut regarded, or delude them with promises that are not kept. But there was another grqat principle in the constitution of Penn’s settlement. Though the land had been acquired for the sake of the Quakers, who were ground down in England by a double severe oppression, it was to be open to men of other creeds, if they believed in G4d and did not insult the religion of tHfeir neighbors. In this appeared the greatness of William Penn. A man of smaller calibre would have confined the settlement to Quakers. Penn threw it open, and in course of time the Quakers were neitly lost in the multitude of other denominations. But, so far as their influence extended, the Quakers did their best to put the mold of Penn on the new community, and while they were able to exercise control, the principles of Penn were observed strictly toward the natives. One of the sublimes! scenes of any history was Penn’s entering into treaty with the Indians. Un,der the fine old elhi, one day in 1082, he appeared in his ordinary dress, without crown, or sword, or mace, his only distinction being a sky-blue sash round his waist. He held in his hand a parchment roll containing the confirmation of his treaty with the Indians. One by one its conditions were read and explained. The purchase money was paid, ths parchment delivered to the -principle chief. The responses on the part of the Indians was solemn and cordial. “It was tho only treaty,” as has been remarked, “between those people and the Christians that was not , ratified by an oath, and it *%as never broken.” It had been proposed to call the new settlement New Wales, but that was rejected. From its wooded aspect Penn wished to call it Sylvania., At the King’s command, though against Penn’s wishes, his name was prefixed, and ever after it was “Pennsylvania.” Prof. Blaikie in the Quiver. ±